Social Media Election Policies: The Good, the Bad and the Misinformed
Article
False and misleading social media harms elections, undermines public trust, normalizes baseless challenges to elections, stokes harassment and incites violence.
Navegando en un mundo digital: Consejos para los jóvenes
Tools and Strategies
For Educators | For Parents, Families, and Caregivers | For Students Tweens and teens spend a lot of time using technology, much of it positive, but it can move into cyberbullying and other online mean behavior. Below are tips young people can use in their digital lives to help them have a positive online experience and effectively respond to negative online behavior and cyberbullying. Before going online...Set guidelines.Limit electronic use.Consider what it means to be responsible online…
Teach students about what gossip and rumors are and the impact they have on others, especially those identity groups which may be more vulnerable to and marginalized by rumors and gossip.
For Educators | For Parents, Families, and Caregivers | For Students Here are some simple things you can do to be an ally to targets of name-calling and bullying. And remember—always think about your safety first when deciding the best way to respond. 1. Support targets, whether you know them or not.Show compassion and encouragement to those who are the targets of bullying behavior by asking if they’re okay, going with them to get help and letting them know you are there for them…
ADL’s analysis found Meta has accepted large sums of money for ads on hateful topics such as antisemitism and transphobia. In some cases, Meta even accepted money for ads that violated its hate speech policy.
Major Platforms’ Midterm Election Policies: Are They Enough?
Article
Summary
The United States midterm electoral campaigns are in full force as candidates prepare advertisements and voter outreach. Social media is an integral part of their campaigning as more than half of all Americans get news from a social media platform.
But false or misleading information (including misinformation, spread without malice or coordination, and disinformation, purposely created to manipulate or cause harm) runs rampant on platforms, subverting democracy and leading…
Remarks by Jonathan Greenblatt to the Inter-Parliamentary Task Force to Combat Online Antisemitism
News
Good evening and thank you for being a part of this important gathering of the Inter-Parliamentary Task Force to Combat Online Antisemitism.
I’m delighted to see so many friends in this room tonight. I want to particularly thank Task Force co-chairs U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Canadian Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather for organizing this critically important summit that challenges us to ask hard questions about the evolution and proliferation of online antisemitism…
How A Texas Teen Turned Bias and Body-Shaming into Advocacy and Action
Article
Olivia Julianna (who uses only her first and middle name publicly to protect her privacy) has been an activist for several years, advocating voting rights and reproductive-health care. Like many in her generation, she found the political side of TikTok where young people post about important issues facing them. Olivia is involved with Gen-Z for Change, a nonprofit organization leveraging social media to promote civil discourse and political action on a variety of topics including…
Swatting is the deliberate and malicious act of reporting a false crime or emergency to evoke an aggressive response (often a SWAT team) from a law enforcement agency to a target's residence or place of work to harass and intimidate them.
Alarmingly, swatting appears to be on the rise. Kevin Kolbye, a former FBI agent with expertise in swatting, estimates incidents have jumped from 400 cases in 2011 to over 1,000 in 2019. Unfortunately, the actual number is unknown because the FBI does not…
Twitter’s Failure to Enforce Its Policy Against Antisemitism
Article
An investigation from ADL’s Center for Technology and Society (CTS) found Twitter did not remove over 200 blatantly antisemitic tweets accusing Jewish people of pedophilia, invoking Holocaust denial, and sharing oft-repeated conspiracy theories. To test Twitter’s enforcement of its policies on antisemitism, CTS reported 225 strongly antisemitic tweets over nine weeks through ongoing communications with the platform. Of the reported tweets, Twitter only removed 11, or 5% of the…
Repeat Liars: Falsehoods Around Buffalo Shooting and the 2020 Election
Article
Whether it is about a global pandemic, the 2020 presidential election, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or the latest mass shooting, lies continue to thrive on social media platforms. According to a 2021 poll by the Pew Research Center, nearly half of Americans get their news from social media. While many people feel confident in their media literacy, YouGov found that only 4% of those surveyed could correctly distinguish false news stories from true ones.
In order to assess platforms…
Table Talk: Family Conversations About Current EventsWhen there are periods of heightened violence and war in the news, oftentimes one or more marginalized identity groups can become the focus of attention, anger, hostility and bias even far removed from the location of the conflict. When there is conflict in the Middle East, Muslims and Muslim Americans often face such hostility, bias and even violence. With the continued scrutiny and conflict with Israel since 2023, ADL has tracked an uptick…
Deplatform Tucker Carlson and the "Great Replacement" Theory
Article
In the wake of the horrific racist massacre in Buffalo, NY, Stop Hate for Profit is calling on mainstream social media platforms Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Discord, and Reddit to immediately stop the spread of hateful white supremacist rhetoric that has incited acts of violence by permanently banning repeat perpetrators like Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and others from their platforms and enforcing their own hate speech policies with regard to the Great Replacement theory and white supremacy. This article describes the forms that the Great Replacement Theory takes on these platforms and the platform policies they are violating.
9 Ideas for Teaching Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Lesson Plan
Use these activities to bring the history, culture and experience of the AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) people and community to your classroom.
Agnostic About Extremism: Tech Companies' Roles in Spreading Dangerous Content from the Buffalo Shooting
Article
On May 14, 2022, an alleged extremist streamed video footage online as he murdered 10 people and injured three more inside a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York. The shooter livestreamed his rampage on the social media platform Twitch, which Amazon owns. Preceding the murders, the shooter allegedly plotted his attack on the chat platform Discord and spread white supremacist dogma on fringe websites such as 4chan and Kiwi Farms.
After the shooting, a video…
Elon Musk Plans to Buy Twitter. Right-wing Extremists Rejoice.
Article
Right-wing extremists cheered the announcement; they believe Musk will usher in a new era on the social media platform, free from “left-wing” censorship.
Use the short evocative videos and films in this lesson plan to engage young people in conversations about identity, diversity, bias and social justice.